


Danger Nights

by eternal_teapot



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-22
Updated: 2012-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:35:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2496374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternal_teapot/pseuds/eternal_teapot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series 2 ficlet written in response to the prompt "Mycroft has danger nights too."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Danger Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly cleaned up version of an old fill for the BBC kink meme, which can be found [here](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/19743.html?thread=118374943#t118374943)

He is seven when he swipes the pack of matches from his father’s desk and the photo of baby Sherlock and slips out the back door. Already he can tell that Sherlock is going to be a pain. He cries _constantly_ for no apparent reason, and mummy keeps saying things like “predictably unpredictable” and “bit of a handful.” She looks tired all the time, but refuses let Mycroft look after his brother while she takes a nap (he’s sure he could sort out the problem). Instead he’s here, clearing a wide patch of dirt and stretching out on his stomach, and gazing at the image of his baby brother, which frozen perpetually in the act of grasping at an outstretched finger. Too bad he can’t freeze the real Sherlock long enough for everyone to get some sleep. It takes him two attempts to strike a match, and when it lights, he nearly drops it in surprise. He _does_ drop it when the heat creeps up to his fingertips, and he watches as it gutters in the dirt and at length burns itself out. The next match lights on the first go. He touches it to the corner of the photo and lays both down on the ground in front of him, kicking his heels in the dirt. The paper darkens and curls inward, and baby Sherlock gradually shrivels into a black ball of nothing, smoke trailing lazily upward from it. He uses a stick to poke it into crumbling pieces. In spite of the fact that black film clings to the stick and the ground, there’s something clean about it that he likes. 

Mycroft is twenty-five when he drops in on his brother unannounced only to find him looking thinner, curiously intent, and holding a spoon over a Bunsen burner. The narrow blue flame licks gently at the bottom of the metal, cradling it, and it takes a full, damning ten seconds before the import of the tableau hits home. Well. He’d always suspected that Sherlock shared his penchant for playing with fire. Eventually Sherlock will learn to control it. 

He is much older and not nearly so naive by the time he finds himself staring at a plane full of corpses, wondering how his life has come to consist of a seemingly eternal juggling act, periodically interrupted by the need to pick up after Sherlock. _But that’s not entirely accurate, is it? You’re the one who sent him after her._ The doubts only feed his anger, and some days he thinks it would be so much _easier_ to raze the whole edifice to the ground and start afresh. He could do it, too--he’s almost certain. He knows where all the important pieces are, after all, all the load-bearing walls. He pictures it, plans it out in meticulous, caressing detail: a pluck of this string, a strike of that note, a detonation here, an undermining there. And then he could scrape away the ruins and build afresh. The challenge of keeping the relentless damage in check on such a scale leaves a knot of anticipation in his stomach. It wouldn’t be so bad, in the end. After all, London has survived fire before and come out all the stronger for it. 

He keeps his hands open by his sides and his posture relaxed. Even though the man is quite thoroughly manacled, handing Moriarty ammunition--any data--would reckless. At least, handing him any data not calculated to deceive. Mycroft drops in daily, laying the foundations for his own long con, parceling out heavily censored data in tiny increments under the guise of seeking information. Moriarty doesn’t seem to mind. Even stripped to his undergarments and in need of a wash and a shave, distinctly worse for wear, he hasn’t stopped smiling, eyes wide, and head tilted. “Come now. Aren’t you sick of it? All those little minds, all those little _rules_. It’s a farce. You know it as well as I do, or you wouldn’t keep coming back.” Sometimes when he talks, Mycroft can hear Nero fiddling; he’s not always certain who’s playing whom.

He’s also not certain whether he loves or hates the look on Sherlock’s face whenever he talks about Moriarty, whenever he’s on the hunt. Like it or not, Moriarty has kindled something in his brother, some long dormant, quicksilver, fascinated part of his brain--Moriarty spurs him to the height of his talents. It’s a look he used to wear when he talked to Mycroft. But their sniping now falls into the same worn grooves, and although even Sherlock would have to admit that Mycroft is the _smarter_ of the two, Mycroft has not been able to _surprise_ him in quite some time. Yet there’s another place Mycroft has seen that eager, _wanting_ expression, and it makes him uneasy to see it on his brother’s face. 

The only other person to regularly summon that look of delight from his brother now stands in front of him, shouting about the woeful state of Sherlock’s address book. The fact that he’d anticipated, indeed planned for, John Watson’s anger turns out to be small consolation under the grating weight of months of thankless effort and sleepless nights. And now here is Johnny Come Lately Watson, presuming to _lecture_ him about what’s best for Sherlock Holmes. Underneath the gall of it is the lurking fear that his plan has irrevocably burned any working relationship, or--God forbid--friendship, he himself might have had with John. John might eventually forgive Sherlock for this charade, but Mycroft? Mycroft looks into John’s eyes and fears that exactly the same qualities in him that keep tugging Sherlock away from Moriarty are the same ones that could blow everything to hell. 

The memorial service is as amusing as expected, and John’s wrath runs exactly as predicted. Mycroft makes due with one cigarette afterwards, savoring the click of the lighter and the circular glow heightened in the increasing darkness of the churchyard. The lighter is a heavy presence in his pocket, and the desire to pull it back out itches beneath his skin. He turns over his memory of the stiff line of John’s retreating back and dismisses it--sentiment is a weakness. No, he carefully snuffs out the butt beneath his shoe. He’d planned everything perfectly. Exactly the right parts of London were set to burn. He was _quite_ certain.


End file.
